Assignment 2 - DIY 3D Controller
From Physical Programming
A DIY 3D Interface Device.
Constructed by Kyle McDonald of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
I simply couldn't go past this one for interactivity, or simplicity. Three sheets of aluminium foil stuck to the inside of a cardboard box corner actually each make up one half of a large capacitor. The other half is a ground - your hand. Through an Arduino board the charge and discharge of each of the plates is cycled. Measuring the variances in capacitance caused by the movements of your hand makes the Arduino output dynamic x,y,z coordinates which are uploaded, in real time, to a computer.
The code to make all this happen, and test it, is made available to play with and tweak, from the creator's own adaptions of other people's code. Because of this there's a lot of room to move in terms of applications.
Unfortunately this Wiki won't let me embed the video (edit: it's not that it won't let me, its that I don't have the skills) of the final outcome, however, if you go to the 'instructables' page it was originally featured on at www.instructables.com/id/DIY-3D-Controller you'll be able to see what Kyle ultimately used as his 'proof of concept', and how well the idea worked. There's also a lot of discussion on how to improve the device in the comments on the project. As such, if I were to actually build it, I may not stick precisely to the instructions set out.
Definitely opens up some very fun and cool applications. (Minority Report style screens anyone?) All credit and acknowledgment to Kyle McDonald for coming up with this very simple and very effective little project.
Wil Campbell 3234047
